Generic vehicle seats are already well known in the art. They are expediently often used in all-terrain motor vehicles and utility motor vehicles so as in particular to offer a driver maximum driving comfort even on rough terrain or dirt roads.
For this purpose these vehicle seats often comprise both horizontally and vertically acting cushioning and damping devices, which are used to support at least the seat part of the vehicle seat sufficiently well with respect to the body of the vehicle.
A seat substructure of the vehicle seat is often very large since the cushioning and/or damping devices occupy considerable space. For example, horizontal spring devices known in the art often require considerable space since they always use spring elements, such as helical spring elements, which are oriented in the cushioning direction. However, such an arrangement means that the horizontal spring device is either very large in order to achieve a particular spring characteristic in the cushioning direction or only a suitably smaller spring element can be used. If the latter option is chosen, however, the desired spring characteristic is often not achieved, or is achieved but only to an insufficient extent. Moreover, the spring characteristics of, in particular, the spring elements installed in the horizontal spring devices cannot be varied or influenced—or can be, but only to an insufficient extent. This means that the resulting spring characteristic cannot be optimally set.
A generic vehicle seat for a vehicle is also known from Offenlegungsschrift DE 10 2010 055 342 A1 and has, inter alia, a horizontal spring device comprising at least one fluid spring element which is actively variable in an absorptive volume and extends in an elongate manner between two attachment regions, onto which fluid spring element pressure forces can be applied obliquely to the lengthwise direction thereof by means of a deformation device for deforming, in particular for bending, the fluid spring element. Owing to the thus constructed spring device, a compact horizontal spring device can be integrated in the seat substructure below a seat part of the vehicle seat. Particularly owing to the fluid spring element used, the spring characteristic can additionally be set within certain limits, thereby effectively circumventing at least some of the disadvantages set out above.